Apparatus, system and method of communicating a beacon frame

Abstract

Some demonstrative embodiments include apparatuses, systems and/or methods of communicating a beacon frame. For example, a wireless station may be configured to 2generate a beacon frame having one or more fields including Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN) information; and transmit the beacon frame over a Sub 1 Gigahertz (GHz) (S1G) band according to a discovery scheme including a plurality of NAN Discovery Windows (DW).

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. An apparatus comprising logic and circuitry configured to cause a wireless station to:
 generate a beacon frame having one or more fields including Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN) information, the beacon frame comprising a first timestamp field, a partial cluster Identifier (ID) field, and an information element comprising a second timestamp field, the partial cluster ID field comprising a partial Media Access Control (MAC) address of a NAN cluster, the first timestamp field comprising a first portion of a Time Synchronization Function (TSF) timer of the NAN cluster, the second timestamp field comprising a second portion, which is different from the first portion, of the TSF timer of the NAN cluster; and 
 transmit the beacon frame over a Sub 1 Gigahertz (GHz) (S1G) band according to a discovery scheme including a plurality of NAN Discovery Windows (DW). 
 
     
     
       2. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the beacon frame comprises a duration field, a Sender Address (SA) field, and a change sequence field. 
     
     
       3. The apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein the first timestamp field is between the SA field and the change sequence field, and the information element is after the change sequence field. 
     
     
       4. The apparatus of  claim 3 , wherein the partial cluster ID field is between the change sequence field and the information element. 
     
     
       5. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the information element comprises an S1G beacon compatibility Information Element (IE). 
     
     
       6. The apparatus of  claim 5 , wherein the S1G beacon compatibility IE includes a beacon interval field including a beacon interval of a NAN Synchronization beacon or a NAN Discovery Beacon. 
     
     
       7. The apparatus of  claim 6 , wherein the beacon interval is n times 512 time units (TU), if the beacon frame is the NAN synchronization beacon, or n times 100TU if the beacon frame is the NAN discovery beacon, wherein n is an integer greater than zero. 
     
     
       8. The apparatus of  claim 7 , wherein n is 10. 
     
     
       9. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second timestamp field comprises a TSF completion field including four most significant octets of the TSF timer. 
     
     
       10. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the beacon frame comprises a NAN Information Element (IE). 
     
     
       11. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the first timestamp field includes four least significant octets of the TSF timer, and the second timestamp field includes four most significant octets of the TSF timer. 
     
     
       12. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the NAN information comprises at least part of NAN information of a beacon frame configured for a 2.4 GHz or 5 GHZ band. 
     
     
       13. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein said beacon frame comprises an S1G beacon frame. 
     
     
       14. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the beacon frame is in compliance with an IEEE 802.11ah Specification. 
     
     
       15. The apparatus of  claim 1  comprising a transmitter to transmit the beacon frame. 
     
     
       16. The apparatus of  claim 1  comprising one or more antennas, a memory and a processor. 
     
     
       17. An apparatus comprising logic and circuitry configured to cause a wireless station to:
 process reception of a beacon frame over a Sub 1 Gigahertz (GHz) (S1G) band according to a discovery scheme including a plurality of Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN) Discovery Windows (DW), the beacon frame having one or more fields including NAN information, the beacon frame comprising a first timestamp field, a partial cluster Identifier (ID) field, and an information element comprising a second timestamp field, the partial cluster ID field comprising a partial Media Access Control (MAC) address of a NAN cluster, the first timestamp field comprising a first portion of a Time Synchronization Function (TSF) timer of the NAN cluster, the second timestamp field comprising a second portion, which is different from the first portion, of the TSF timer of the NAN cluster; and 
 process communication during one or more of the NAN DWs according to the NAN information. 
 
     
     
       18. The apparatus of  claim 17 , wherein the first timestamp field includes four least significant octets of the TSF timer, and the second timestamp field includes four most significant octets of the TSF time. 
     
     
       19. The apparatus of  claim 17  comprising one or more antennas, a memory and a processor. 
     
     
       20. A product including one or more tangible computer-readable non-transitory storage media comprising computer-executable instructions operable to, when executed by at least one computer processor, enable the at least one computer processor to cause a wireless device to:
 generate a beacon frame having one or more fields including Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN) information, the beacon frame comprising a first timestamp field, a partial cluster Identifier (ID) field, and an information element comprising a second timestamp field, the partial cluster ID field comprising a partial Media Access Control (MAC) address of a NAN cluster, the first timestamp field comprising a first portion of a Time Synchronization Function (TSF) timer of the NAN cluster, the second timestamp field comprising a second portion, which is different from the first portion, of the TSF timer of the NAN cluster; and 
 transmit the beacon frame over a Sub 1 Gigahertz (GHz) (S1G) band according to a discovery scheme including a plurality of NAN Discovery Windows (DW). 
 
     
     
       21. The product of  claim 20 , wherein the first timestamp field includes four least significant octets of the TSF timer, and the second timestamp field includes four most significant octets of the TSF timer. 
     
     
       22. The product of  claim 20 , wherein the information element comprises an S1G beacon compatibility Information Element (IE). 
     
     
       23. A product including one or more tangible computer-readable non-transitory storage media comprising computer-executable instructions operable to, when executed by at least one computer processor, enable the at least one computer processor to cause a wireless device to:
 receive a beacon frame over a Sub 1 Gigahertz (GHz) (S1G) band according to a discovery scheme including a plurality of Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN) Discovery Windows (DW), the beacon frame having one or more fields including NAN information, the beacon frame comprising a first timestamp field, a partial cluster Identifier (ID) field, and an information element comprising a second timestamp field, the partial cluster ID field comprising a partial Media Access Control (MAC) address of a NAN cluster, the first timestamp field comprising a first portion of a Time Synchronization Function (TSF) timer of the NAN cluster, the second timestamp field comprising a second portion, which is different from the first portion, of the TSF timer of the NAN cluster; and 
 communicate during one or more of the NAN DWs according to the NAN information. 
 
     
     
       24. The product of  claim 23 , wherein the first timestamp field includes four least significant octets of the TSF timer, and the second timestamp field includes four most significant octets of the TSF timer. 
     
     
       25. The product of  claim 23 , wherein the information element comprises an S1G beacon compatibility Information Element (IE).